I’ve been receiving a lot of questions lately about writing, The Mukhtaar Chronicles, music, dogs, books…you name it. And they’ve been coming at me from about 10 different directions all at once. Well, I’ve finally decided to embrace the fact that I live on Facebook most of the time. Yes, I still respond on Twitter, and I always participate in discussions that take place in the comments section here at the blog. But I’m on Facebook ALL – OF – THE – TIME. It’s a sickness. You should feel sorry for me, really, now that I think about it. Anyway, I’m proud to announce the grand opening of The Mukhtaar Estate, a Facebook discussion group geared towards…well, it’s geared towards …

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UPDATED JULY 2, 2017 Writing is not a solitary endeavor. Not by a long shot. When a writer finishes a draft of a story, it is usually impossible for them to be objective about what they’ve written. Beta readers take a recently completed story and view it with a level of objectivity that the writer does not possess. But if you’ve never worked with a beta reader before, you shouldn’t jump in blindly. Beta readers can help you bring focus to your story in ways you never imagined. But they can also be less-than-helpful if you’re not specific in your directions. Worse, they can be downright problematic if you’re not careful. In this article, I’ll go over the …

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Raise your hand if you’ve heard the following phrase: If you’ve been writing for any length of time, you’ve certainly come across this doozy of a saying. You may even think you know what it means. But until you’re faced with having to drastically reduce the word count of your manuscript, you’ve only scratched the surface.

[Updated 5/09/2014] Welcome to part two of my two-part series on Revision. If you haven’t read part one yet, I recommend it, and not in an entirely self-serving way. In this post I’m going to dig into the second half of my Common Revision Checklist, and I’m going to assume you’re already familiar with the first half. Today we’re going to take a look at the following topics: Commonly misused words/expressions Filter words “Something of Something” constructions Superfluous Movement Verbs Passive voice Dialog attributions Superfluous “That” usage Confusing “ing” constructions

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[Updated 5/09/2014] In an earlier post titled Revising Your First Draft: The First Read-Through I teased you all with mention of a Revision Checklist and going into a deeper dive of my own revision process. Before I go there, I want to caution you: if you are still in the middle of writing your first draft, you do not want to read this post. You heard me. If you’re still producing your first draft, close this browser tab and back away from the blog. Better still, bookmark this post for later review…then step away from the blog. Ok. We should be alone now. If any of those “first drafters” come back, someone nudge me or something. We can’t have them poking around here …

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[Revised 02/10/2015] What have I gotten myself into? If you’re in the middle of your first draft, you’ve probably asked yourself that question several times by now. Writing that first draft can feel like running a sprint at times. Your head is full of ideas for setting, characterization, dialog, plot, and interesting scenes. Thoughts are flowing so fast that your fingers can’t keep up. Putting the words on paper is like a mental dump of information. Did you capture it all? Did you get that last thought translated from brain signals to keyboard strokes? You’re not certain, but if you stop to look back you just might miss that next thought that’s bubbling to the surface.

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Nat Russo is the Amazon #1 Bestselling Fantasy author of Necromancer Awakening.
Nat was born in New York, raised in Arizona, and has lived just about everywhere in-between. He’s gone from pizza maker, to radio DJ, to Catholic seminarian (in a Benedictine monastery, of all places), to police officer, to software engineer. His career has taken him from central Texas to central Germany, where he worked as a defense contractor for Northrop Grumman. He's spent most of his adult life developing software, playing video games, running a Cub Scout den, gaining/losing/gaining/losing weight, and listening to every kind of music under the sun.
Along the way he managed to earn a degree in Philosophy and a black belt in Tang Soo Do.
He currently makes his home in central Texas with his wife, teenager, mischievous beagle, and goofy boxador.